


No Better Way of Living, No Better Way of Dying

by gosshawks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon-Typical Violence, Deviates From Canon, Drama, F/F, F/M, Fan Characters, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Monster of the Week, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Queer Families, Queer Themes, Romance, Sibling Bonding, Slow Burn, Supernatural But Gayer, Team as Family, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-27 04:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15016796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gosshawks/pseuds/gosshawks
Summary: When a text from John sends Dean and Sam to meet with one of his research contacts, they get more than they bargain for and the Impala gets a third passenger. Percy Malory, nonbinary folklorist and grad school dropout, loves the supernatural even as they fight it.Starts after 1x04. Will span S1-5.





	1. Black Dog, Part 1

**  
**

The sun was going down and Nick Harper still had two miles left in his hike. It hadn’t been a good day: he’d turned his ankle and had to limp all the way back, which had turned a four hour hike into a six hour one. But there was nothing for it but to move forward.

So he plodded on, the woods grew dark, and he flicked on the flashlight he always kept with him, just in case. Animals rustled in the bushes, the beam of his flashlight sometimes carching the eyes of a deer or raccoon.

Then suddenly Nick felt…wrong. He hadn’t strayed from the path but suddenly everything looked uninviting. Grotesque faces watched him from the peeling birch trees, and their branches looked like fingers reaching for him. Still he tried to keep his head. He was nearly back. He had to be.

Head spinning, he half-slumped against a tree, trying to catch his breath.

Somewhere behind him, somehow close and far away all at once, Nick heard a noise. A heard-for-miles-and-felt-in-your-ribs growl that stopped him cold. It was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard.

As it turned out, it would be the last sound he would ever hear, too.

 

* * *

Dean and Sam Winchester had just finished that job in Pennsylvania with the phantom traveler when their dad had sent them another. Two sets of coordinates this time: the first for a town called Broad Creek, New Hampshire, where there’d been some disappearances; the second a place a few miles away, with a name. Percy Malory. He was mentioned in the journal, once or twice, and from the bare context clues Dean guessed he must have been some old, batty Ivy League professor John had gone to for research help. A desk duty hunting pal of his, not practically family like Caleb or Pastor Jim or Bobby. Their dad must have had hundreds of those.

So Dean had a vague idea of what he was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t what he got.

They pulled up in the Impala to a little house in the woods at the end of a mile-long dirt road. It was…nice. If you liked that thing. Not like the decrepit hunting cabins and pseudo-shacks most hunters seemed to live out of.

Dean rapped at the door and stepped back, waiting impatiently.

The girl—and she really was a _girl_ —who answered it couldn’t have been older than Sammy, to look at her, and she was a good foot shorter. Her brown hair was cut short and parted at the side. She wore a red shearling aviator jacket over a navy turtleneck, tucked into high waisted jeans. Ink was smudged across her nose and she had those classic, professor-esque tortoiseshell glasses.

No way was this their guy. A research assistant, maybe? A kid?

The girl smiled brightly, the picture of a helpful neighbor. “Hiya, is there something you boys need?” she asked. One hand rested on the doorjam but the other reached behind the door. Dean would’ve bet the car (and he'd never have bet the car for anything) that she had a gun stashed there.

_Maybe she’s a hunter after all._

Sam recovered first. “Yeah, we’re John Winchester’s sons, he wanted us to come see Percy Malory about a job,” he said politely.

“Uh, yeah. I’m Dean, and this is Sammy,” Dean said, finding his tongue a second too late.

“ _Sam_ ,” Sammy corrected him. He wondered if his brother knew that every time he corrected him he made sure Dean would call him that again.

Blinking, the girl withdrew her hand from behind the door. “Oh! Wow, okay, hi. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, her voice slipping from its high customer service-esque tone to a lower, more natural register. “You’re in luck, I’m Percy. Do you guys want to come in? I was just about to make some coffee.”

_…Huh._

“Coffee sounds great,” said Dean. He and Sam shared a look and followed her in. Dean closed the door behind him and, sure enough, a sawed off shotgun was mounted on the back of it.

Almost all the walls of the house were lined with bookshelves, and almost all of the shelves overflowed with books. Cloth-bound and vintage, hardcover, mass-market…the only thing they seemed to have in common is they were all about folklore or fantasy or the occult. Dean might not have been a nerd but he knew enough to recognize _The Odyssey_ and _Bullfinch’s Mythology_. _The Once and Future King._

She caught him eyeing her books and smiled. “See something you like?”

“I just know some of them. I’m not a big reader, that’s my brother,” he said. “Also you, uh…you’ve got a little…” Dean gestured to his nose, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smile.

“What—oh, shit,” she said with a flustered laugh. Looking into a mirror on the wall, she licked the pad of their thumb and rubbed off the worst of the ink. Percy glanced back over at him, smiling. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He watched her a bit. “…You’re kinda different for a girl, you know that?” Percy laughed, and he couldn’t figure out what he’d said that was funny. She _was_.

“I know plenty of girls who’re like me. Academics who love literature and fantasy. But I’m not one,” she said. “A girl, I mean.”

“Oh. …Uh, then what—?” Dean fumbled. “…What are you?” It sounded rude, even to him, but he didn’t know how else to put it.

Percy shrugged with a breezy smile. “Nonbinary. Neither fish nor fowl. A ‘they.’”

“Oh. Cool,” said Dean, perplexed. He could roll with anything, though, he thought. He might’ve been a boy from Lawrence but he got around, even if he didn’t have culture he got exposed to it. He had some idea of what other people’s lives were like, kind of, vaguely.

He padded after Percy into the kitchen, hands in his pockets. They hummed as they rinsed out the coffee pot. Hunters tended to be older, solitary, curmudgeonly. It was odd meeting one who was their age, but it was almost scary to meet one who was _friendly_. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“So,” Sam began hesitantly, “our dad didn’t really tell us anything about you. How do you know him?”

He seemed to be thinking the same thing Dean was: some professor or some shit he could understand, but how the hell would their dad have met them?

Percy replaced the filter and measured out the coffee. “He saved my life when I was in college, and in the last couple of years I’ve done research for him and some other hunters off and on. I’m a folklore grad student. Or, um, I was. And a very messy writer, hence the ink all over my face.” They filled the pot. “Percy Malory—it’s a pseudonym. I still have family out there and I don’t want them involved in all this.”

Leaving the coffee to brew, they leaned back against the counter.

“Where is your dad, anyway? Last I heard he was hunting with you and Sam was still at school,” Percy said.

He exchanged a concerned look with Sam.

“…He’s been missing awhile,” Dean started hesitantly. “He won’t tell us where he is and he doesn’t seem to want us to find him. But he sends jobs our way sometimes. And Sam…”

“I took a break,” Sam said flatly. “My girlfriend died. I don’t know if our dad ever told you about what happened to our mom, but…”

“Just that something killed her and that’s why he became a hunter. Is that—?”

Sam nodded, looking away. Dean rubbed at his neck.

“…I’m sorry.” The uncomfortable silence of strangers all being forced to share too much was mercifully cut short by a beep from the coffee maker.

Percy filled three mugs with fresh coffee. “I’m sorry you guys haven’t been able to get in touch with your dad, but I’m glad he thought I could help you with something.” They offered them their coffees, then poured a bit of cream in their own.

Dean accepted his, taking a slurping sip. It was too hot, but he was always impatient, so his tongue was permanently burnt anyway. Sam blew on his own, holding it in both hands.

“What’re you guys hunting?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Dean rooted around in his back jean pocket, pulling out the folded papers. “We’re not sure. We were looking into those disappearances in Broad Creek, but you’re our first stop.” He handed them the papers, and Percy read quickly as they poured creamer into their coffee.

“Hmm, okay,” they said after a minute, looking over the page where he and Sam had plotted the last sightings of the victims on a local map.

“All of them disappeared at night, we think, and all of them in that circle of the White Mountains Forest,” said Sam, coming over to gesture to the area.

“Then whatever’s out there lives in the woods and it’s nocturnal,” Percy said matter-of-factly. “And it can surprise its quarry and spirit them away without a trace. That’s why they’re classed as disappearances, not bear attacks or murders.”

“So, folklore nerd, what’s that leave us with?” Dean asked, sipping his coffee.

“ _Well_ ,” Percy began with a deep breath, “I was _hoping_  you'd ask. No local Native legends that fit, so we’re probably looking at something imported. In New Hampshire, colonists were mostly British or Scotch-Irish, and you wouldn’t believe how much of the supernatural gets brought over with the people themselves. Whether they hitched a ride on the ships, or they exist in part because those people believed in them and the beliefs migrated with them, where the people go the monsters follow.”

They paused to take a sip of coffee, and Dean could practically see the gears turning in their head.

“My guess is a black dog,” they said, continuing to talk as they walked briskly into the living room and started browsing the shelves. Dean followed. Percy was talkative as hell, but he figured out here they didn’t get many people to talk to. He got the same way when he’d been hunting alone for a bit. It was fine as long as they got to the point sometime this month. “There have been sightings of them all throughout New England, and you can barely throw a stone in England itself without coming across a place with a story about a spectral black dog haunting a church or moor. Black shuck, Padfoot, church grim, Gabriel hound…mostly they’re all just names for the same thing, though the specifics vary.” They took an old, linen-bound book from the bookcase and started to flip through it.

“Here we go, from the pages of _Jane Eyre_ : the gytrash. A kind of black dog that haunts solitary ways, surprises unwary travelers who wander alone after dark.” Percy looked up at them brightly. “I think that’s our boy.”

Dean drained the last of his coffee, wiping his mouth. “So you just…knew all that off the top of your head?” He gave Sam a sideways glance, grinning. “Looks like someone might be out of a job.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but still smiled. “Ha, ha. Good luck finding anyone else who’ll spend eight hours a day in the car with you.” He grumbled something in response, and Percy laughed, not unkindly.

“You know,” they said thoughtfully, “it’ll be light for another couple of hours yet. We could get ready and go after this thing tonight.”

“…’We’?” said Dean. “You want to come with us? I thought you were more of a ‘research and stay home’ person than a ‘go out and hunt monsters’ person.” He regretted the words the second they came out of his mouth: Percy bristled, clapping the book shut.

“I’m still a hunter. I can fight. I can _kill_ ,” they said intensely. “And without me you’d still be sitting on your hands.” He didn’t doubt them, exactly, it was just…well, they were little. And no matter what Percy said, they were a researcher. A writer. Not a soldier.

Still, they’d be with him and Sam. If the two of them could keep civillians safe a rookie hunter should be no problem, right?

Dean held up his hands in defeat. “All right. Tonight, then.”

Percy relaxed at that. “…Okay. Tonight.” They sounded determined. Excited, even.

 _I’m going to regret this_ , Dean thought.

(He would.)

 

* * *

 

The three of them hung around for a while, ate dinner, packed up, then drove out to the White Mountains Forest just before dark. The last rays of sunlight were peeking out from behind the mountains, drenching the landscape in pinks and reds and golds. It’s pretty out here, Percy thought. They found themself wishing they were there to camp in the summer instead of spending the night huddled and freezing and keeping their ears cocked for the sound of a gigantic murderous dog.

Dean propped open the trunk of the Impala, revealing the arsenal hidden beneath the false bottom. Guns and knives and stakes and machetes and holy water and silver and iron and bronze and God knew what else. It made Percy’s stomach turn. It wasn’t the weapons themselves that made them uneasy, exactly, it was what those things represented: ways to kill six hundred kinds of evil things that lurked unseen and would have loved to snack on even a scrawny thing such as them.

The job was easier hands-off, that was for sure. Safer, too. But it also wasn’t as full of joy and terror.

“You know how to fight one of these?” Dean asked, offering them a massive knife hilt-first. Percy took it with care and tested its weight in their hand. It was heavy, but not unwieldy. Well-balanced, too.

“Theoretically,” they said. “All the lore has a black dog as something between faerie and ghost, so iron should do the trick. Silver as a back-up.”

“Mm,” Dean said, unconvinced.

“Just worry about yourself,” they teased, and flicked on their flashlight. “I’ll be fine.”

It was freezing among the trees, and the wind whistled as it blew through the bone white branches. There was the occasional call of an owl or mockingbird, or the fluttering of bat wings, or the cracking of a branch underfoot somewhere out in the wood. It was dead eerie.

“You said our dad saved your life,” Sam said as they walked, branches and autumn leaves crackling underfoot. “What happened?”

Percy paused, looking straight ahead.

“I went out with a girl and she turned out to be a man eating demon horse,” they said dryly. Percy could hear Dean’s choked laughter somewhere behind them. They struggled to suppress a smile.

“Oh, uh,” stammered Sam. “…That’s…rough.”

“A _demon horse_?” Dean wheezed.

They didn’t look back at him. “Yeah, a kelpie. You ever heard of it?”

“Uh,” said Dean.

“It’s a Scottish water horse,” Sam cut in.

“Right in one,” said Percy, looking over at Sam with a smile. “Your brother needs to read more Celtic folklore. I met her at a bar in early spring, and it’d been raining, so I didn’t think too much about why she was all wet. Just figured she didn’t have a raincoat, right? Of course I wasn’t thinking that kelpies are always wet, that they seduce humans, that they weave rushes into their hair…folklore doesn’t seem like practical advice until it tries to kill you. And she was pretty.”

“We had a couple of drinks, played some pool. And she wanted to go walking along the river—” Sam winced. “—yeah, you can see where this is going.”

“We walked along, and I kissed her,” Dean wolf whistled, and Percy stopped to punch his arm while still looking at Sam, “I _kissed_ her. And then I tried to pull away and she wouldn’t let me go. She had me in an iron grip, and then suddenly we were in the water. It was so cold all the breath went out of me. I was drifting further and further from the surface and I was losing air.” They adjusted their hat, pulling it down further over their freezing ears. “I was just about to black out. Then I felt someone grab me, and I woke up coughing up water on the riverbank. I was breathing air again. Turns out John had been hunting the thing, had figured out where it went to pick its victims. He saw us go into the river and dove in after. He wrestled with the kelpie, slit its throat, then dragged me back onto solid ground. Your dad’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”

“Jesus,” muttered Dean.

“I’m glad he was there,” Sam said.

“You and me both” they said, raising their flashlight and continuing on. “Anyway, after that I started working for him every now and then.”

The three of them started to move further into the wood, and the conversation petered out. Instinctively, they began to take more care with how they moved, how much sound they made. There was a shift in the atmosphere, a change in pressure, a sense of creeping dread. It must have been near.

Percy felt tense, even a little sick with panic. Something was wrong. This wasn’t just the calm before the storm, or anxiety. Those things they could fight. This was…it was doing this, somehow.

Every noise lit up alarm bells all over their body, every scurry of nocturnal creatures in the darkness made them jolt. The fine hairs on their arms stood on end, and they had to work to keep the hand that held the flashlight from shaking.

They could almost feel the hot breath of the black dog on their neck.

Somewhere out in the darkness, a branch snapped under the weight of something much heavier than a fox or deer. The noise was deafening.

The animal part of their brain, the fight-or-flight part took over. Without meaning to, Percy picked up their pace from careful creep to walk to brisk jog, and before they knew it they were running. Dean yelled after them, but they couldn’t make out what he said. All Percy could do was run, run, run, keeping such a tight grip on the flashlight they thought for a second they might break it. They zigzagged down one path, and then another, feet pounding the hard-packed earth and brittle leaves until eventually they skidded to a stop in a small clearing.

The ringing in their ears faded and they realized the night was totally silent but for the wind in the trees and their own gasping breaths.

If Sam and Dean still called for them, Percy couldn’t hear them.

They were alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my first longform fic period! not sure on the update schedule, but planning to do a handful of chapters/adventures per season
> 
> queer found family feels; probably multiple ocs in addition to percy; girls and characters of color will get more screentime, deeper characterization
> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. Black Dog, Part 2

 

_They were alone._

Suddenly, everything Percy knew about black dogs, about monsters, about the things they’d spent their life on left their head. For a moment, they couldn’t have told you their name.

As they fumbled for their knife, the flashlight tumbled to the ground. But they could feel burning, waiting eyes on them, so they didn’t dare to pick it up.

Even in the darkness they saw something moving through the trees, a hulking, massive creature that seemed to be made of black mist. And two red, angry little points of light. And then it was gone again. It was toying with them, waiting for them to slip up now that they’d made the mistake of losing their head and going off alone.

Percy gripped the knife, ears cocked for any noise. _Come on, come on, just get on with it—_

With a roar loud enough to shake the dying leaves off the trees, the black dog lunged at them. It was _big_. Direwolf big. Bigger. They dove out of the way by the skin of their teeth, rolling on the dead leaves covering the forest floor.

“PERCY!” Dean yelled to them from somewhere far away, too far. But it had them now, there was no use in being quiet.

“OVER HERE!” Percy yelled as loud as they could, scrambling to their feet. Percy tried to get into the trees, to put some distance, some obstacle between them and the _thing_. But just as they stood the dog lunged again, inexorable. It pounced on their back, knocking them hard into the dirt, and their glasses clattered somewhere out of reach. Their chin, their nose slammed into the ground, and they felt a flash of white-hot pain before their mouth filled with warm, metallic liquid. Percy struggled, but it crushed them, pinned by the shoulders with its huge paws.

Percy could hardly breathe with the blood running into their mouth, but they called again in a strangled voice, “Over _here_ —”

Its hot, foul breath blew across the back of their neck. Saliva dripped from its jaws onto their bare skin. Percy yelled, their voice breaking, and squeezed their eyes shut. Then a gunshot rang through the trees and the weight on their back vanished. “Percy!” Dean’s voice called from the direction of the shot.

They heard approaching footsteps, and Percy looked up blearily to see Sam crouched in front of them, his face drawn in worry. He took their arms and helped them wobblingly to their feet. “Are you okay?” he asked, steadying them.

“Not dying,” they said thickly, wiping some of the blood from their face. Sam chuckled weakly.

“Good." 

Sam offered them their glasses, safe and sound, if a bit scratched.

“Thanks. Is it gone?” they asked, putting them on quickly.

Dean jogged over, smoking shotgun in hand. “I just winged it, it’ll be back. The hell were you thinking, running off like that!”

“I’m sorry, I—” Percy started, but Sam cut in.

“Dean, we can talk about this later,” he said calmly, raising his own gun.

Dean looked between them, scowling, then sighed. “Right. C’mon, back to back,” he said. The three of them stood in a triangle in the center of the clearing, facing outward.

Percy’s heart pounded in their throat, their ears. But they wouldn’t run. They wouldn’t. Pain and embarrassment and the feel of slick hot blood dripping off their chin kept them tethered to the here and now. They were going to survive.

Growls echoed through the woods, but none of them could seem to pinpoint where they came from.

Then suddenly the black dog was on them, this time going for Dean. He fired, but too soon, and the shot went off harmlessly in the air. He yelled as the dog dragged him to the ground. “Dean!” Sam yelled, raising his gun. Dean was keeping its jaws at bay, barely, but he struggled with it, their positions were changing too much, Sam was struggling to find a clear shot—

 _You have a knife_ , said a voice in their head. An iron knife. Shotguns were good for carnage. You wanted precision, you used a knife. _Now or never._ Yelling out something like a battle cry they leaped onto the black dog’s back, grabbing onto its matted black fur. It snapped at them, unsure whether to focus on them or Dean. Its hesitation gave Percy the opening they needed.

They plunged the knife into its back, felt it skitter off its ghostly rib and not quite go all the way in. No, no, that wouldn’t do, it had to be the heart—

It made a strangled noise of pain and rage and started to thrash wildly, trying to buck them off. Bracing their knees hard into its sides for purchase, Percy managed to push the iron knife in hilt deep before the movement wrenched it from their shaking, sweaty fingers and threw them to forest floor.

It loomed over them, horrifying six inch teeth bared, then all at once gave a horrible shriek and seemed to tear itself into shreds of shadow. What was left evaporated like mist in the early morning sunlight, and left the iron knife to clatter to the forest floor, perfectly clean.

It was a beautiful way for something so evil to die. They couldn’t help but watch it awe.

“…Percy?” said Sam after a moment. They looked over at the sound: Dean and Sam watched them with some concern. They gave them a tired thumbs-up. Dean laughed, shaking his head, and sat up with a groan. Sam gave him a hand getting up, and he probed gently at his side, clearly in some pain.

But when he came over to them, he grinned.

“Not bad, research nerd,” he said, leaning over to help them up. “First kill?” He was a charming thing, that was for sure.

“Yeah,” they said, a little shyly as they stood. They’d known boys like him, and they knew not to get too caught up with them. But maybe a little caught up was okay. “You all right?”

“Yeah. I owe you one,” said Dean.

“Nah,” they said with a smile, giving his arm a mock punch. “We’re even.” He mouthed “ow” and made a big show of rubbing his arm, pretending that it hurt.

Sam flicked the safety on his gun and started back toward the trail. “You guys all right to walk back? We should get going.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled Dean. Smiling, Percy pinched the bridge of their nose to stem the bleeding and followed them back to the car, a few steps behind. They watched the brothers’ backs as they traded gibes and laughs and shoves.

They were all right, these Winchester boys.

 

* * *

 

The three of them pulled up to the house a silent, exhausted hour later. Percy had dozed off in the back seat, and even Dean had taken a catnap as Sam drove them back. He was used to long nights, but this was a long fucking night.

They parked, and Sam helped Percy out from the back and they thanked him quietly then unlocked the door and slipped inside.

Dean watched them go in, then fished a couple of bills out of his wallet. “Grab us something to eat, will you? There’s that rest stop a couple miles down the highway. I’ll get this one stitched up.”

Sam gave him a doubtful look. “Just watch yourself, all right?”

“Man, you have _got_ to give me a break,” he said inexasperation, shutting the trunk. “I don’t always have an angle.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Sam said, holding out his hand. “I’ll be back in half an hour.” Dean tossed over the keys.

“Yeah, yeah. Take your time.” Shouldering his duffel bag, he went into the house. The lights were on, but Percy wasn’t in sight.

“…Hey, you there?” he said uncertainly.

“In the back,” they called. Dean wandered inside.

They were sitting on their bed, unlacing their hiking boots. Even their room had a small bookcase. Art prints and new wave posters covered the walls, but the one beside their bed was dominated by a rainbow flag. There was a desk covered haphazardly in papers and empty coffee mugs.

He watched them a moment, standing in the doorway. Percy had taken a beating, and they looked even worse in the light. Their eye was almost swollen shut, they had a split lip, a bloodied nose, some other cuts and bruises. They were a mess.

“Hey,” he said, trying not to sound as concerned as he was, “how’re you doing?” Percy shrugged, not looking up. Dean pulled over the chair from the desk and grabbed a first aid kit from his bag. That energy and relief from earlier had totally gone: adrenaline from trying not to die and giddiness from succeeding only lasted so long before you realized how close you’d gotten to never coming back.

He was used to it. Percy wasn’t. Sam wasn’t. It was a hard life.

“…I’m sorry,” they mumbled after a moment, taking off their glasses and setting them with care in the case on their bedside table.

“…What the hell for?” Dean asked.

“I...I messed up pretty bad back there. It was so stupid, it was a rookie mistake, I could’ve gotten you both killed—”

“Yeah, it was a rookie mistake. You’re a _rookie_. We’re pros. It was our job to keep our heads and make sure you didn’t go get eaten, and you ended up saving my ass,” he said.

Percy looked up at him. “I only had the chance because you saved mine.”

“Then we’re even. Just like you said.” Dean took his hip flask from his pocket. “You drink?”

‘Yeah.”

“Drink this,” he said, offering them the flask and a couple of ibuprofen. They took both without needing to be told twice and drank deeply. After they pulled it away and doubled over, coughing.

“Jesus Christ, what _is_ that?” they asked, laughing.

“Shitty bourbon,” he said with a note of pride.

“It’s gross.”

“Yeah.” Dean grinned, and Percy grinned back.“All right, sit still. I’ll get you patched up.” He cleaned up their split lip and could see their jaw clench, but they kept still.

Dean threaded the needle and slipped it under their skin. Percy flinched, squeezing their eyes shut and exhaling hard through their nose. “You’re the one who said you wanted to be a hunter.” They snorted.

“I guess it comes with the territory,” they said.

Usually he was a butcher with stitches, since he only ever did them for himself, but not now. Careful if clumsy fingers pulled the suture through. Their fists were clenched so tight their nails must have been cutting into their palms. Another loop, then the last thread was tied and the end trimmed.

Percy let out a shaky breath, leaning over with their elbows on their knees. Dean gave their back an encouraging pat.

“You got any ice?”

“Yeah, in the freezer. Thanks,” they said. They went into the bathroom and he heard the faucet run as he went to the kitchen. When they came back they at least were a little less bloody, but they looked barely awake. He offered them some ice wrapped in a washcloth and they held it to their black eye. Sitting beside on the end of their bed, he held his own ice pack to his bruised ribs.

“You look like hell,” said Dean.

“Yeah. But hey,” they countered with a winning, if slightly manic, smile, “I’m alive.” He snorted, shaking his head, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.

“Not for much longer if you keep that up,” he said. They laughed loudly, but cut themselves off with a wince and curse as they touched their cut lip. “Hey!” he scolded them. “I just did your stitches and you’re gonna rip ‘em open.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.”

They offered him back his flask and he knocked it back. “Should be. Sam’ll be back soon with something to eat, by the way,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Probably McDonald’s or something, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Hey, I could murder some McNuggets. That’s fine by me,” they said, flopping back onto their bed. Their legs dangled off the edge of the mattress, bare feet hovering above the carpet. “Anyway, it’s not like I’d turn down being treated to dinner. I’m not a _snob_. You two spend your lives hunting monsters on your own dime. I should be treating you.”

“Listen, you say that thinking I’m gonna be polite and refuse, but if you’re offering me money I’m taking it,” said Dean. “Just so you know.” Percy snorted, digging in their back pocket, and slapped a twenty into his waiting hand.

He put it into his wallet, grinning. “Maybe we should keep you around. We could use someone to bankroll this whole enterprise.”

Settling back onto the bed, they held the ice to their eye with one hand and let the other rest on their stomach. “Careful. I might take you up on it,” they said.

Dean stared at them.

“What…really?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. Dean had figured they were acting how they were acting because they wanted to get away from it. People didn’t choose this life. They got pulled into it and stuck with it because they didn’t have anything left. Dad after losing Mom, Sam after losing Jess, and Dean—…well. He’d never really learned how to be a normal person. Hunting and looking after his car and baby brother were the only things he was any good at. And he wasn’t a patch on his old man at any of them.

Percy…sure, they got pulled into this. But they had family somewhere, a degree. Most of a second one. They could get away clean, and why the hell wouldn’t they want to?

For a moment they were quiet, staring at the ceiling. “I mean, I want to keep hunting, at least. I’m sure it sounds crazy, but I love it. I told you Percy Malory’s not my real name, right? Thomas Malory wrote _Le Morte d’Arthur_ , which was like the definitive medieval account of the Arthurian myth cycle. And Sir Perceval was the original knight of the round table to seek the Holy Grail,” Percy muttered, embarrassed. God, but they were a nerd. It was almost endearing, even as it gave him the urge to shove them into a locker.

“This stupid thing I’ve devoted my life to, fantasy, mythology…it means something here. It saves people.” They looked up at him then. “I’m not useful, and I’m not brave. Except when I’m doing this.”

That sent a pang through his chest, sharp as a knife, and Dean couldn’t have said why. But it broke his goddamn heart.

“…No, I-I get it. I don’t think I could rock that white picket fence life, either,” he admitted hesitantly. He didn’t talk to people like this, not even Sam. He could talk to Sam about Sam’s problems all day, but his own…he tried not to show any cards he didn’t have to unless he could hide it behind a joke.

He had a feeling Sam wouldn’t like it, but…maybe a third man would be a good thing. They could talk about it in the morning.

“Yeah!” said Percy. “Exactly. I think about putting on a ring, or having a wedding, or having kids, and it just feels…wrong. It’s not me.”

“Some people just aren’t built for that,” Dean said. He watched them, and they watched him back.

“…Yeah,” said Percy quietly.

The _clunk_ of the Impala’s door being shut cut through the silence. Dean straightened up, looking away, and Percy sat up, setting the ice on the bedside table. Dean stood, feeling—awkward? Embarrassed? That was new.

A key turned in the lock and Sam came in, carrying a few bags of greasy, salty, delicious food, the smell wafting into the room on the breeze. Suddenly it hit him just how hungry he was.

“Hey,” Sam said, hardly setting the bags on the table before Dean snatched one up. “Hey!”

“Mmrrrf,” said Dean unapologetically, mouth already full of fries. His brother shook his head, scoffing, and retrieved his own burger from the bag. Percy sat with them, greedily grabbing the remaining meal.

“Thanks, Sam. This is awesome,” they said. Sam nodded back at them in acknowledgment, his mouth full. Conversation subsided as the three of them, starving, freezing, and sore, scarfed down their well-earned feast.

By the time they’d finished, all three were just about falling asleep in their chairs.

“We should figure out…sleeping arrangements,” Percy said, yawning.

“I’ll flip you for the couch, Sammy,” said Dean, balling up his burger wrapper and tossing it in the trash. “I call heads.”

“I’m not gonna make you sleep on the _floor_ ,” they said, incredulous. “My bed’s a queen, I figured I could split with one of you.”

…Oh. Before Dean could recover and plan an appropriate pickup line, or figure out if he wanted to use one in the first place, Sam took a coin from his pocket. “Dean, you sticking with heads?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Dean, train of thought interrupted. The razor-thin silver coin turned in the air and Sam caught it effortlessly, turning it over onto the back of his other hand. He pulled his hand away, revealing…

Tails.

Sam hesitated, and Dean thought of how he’d been waking up with a jolt from nightmares for months. “Sorry,” he said, glancing over at Dean. “Better luck next time?”

“Right,” he said, wondering why he felt disappointed. _Percy's not even a_ girl, he reminded himself, rubbing at his neck.

“I’ll get you a pillow and some blankets,” they said with a sleepy smile.

“Oh, uh—sure. Thanks.”

* * *

 

Percy woke to the sound of the coffemaker going off. At…5:30 or so in the morning.

There was muffled swearing coming from the direction of the kitchen as the culprit tugged the cord from the wall. Percy looked around in the early predawn light. The bed was empty, and neatly folded on the opposite side. _Ah, Sam_. Gingerly, they slid out of bed, wincing. Their eye and lip felt even more swollen, and their nose was still terribly tender, but at the least their legs worked all right.

They padded out of their room, blinking blearily. Sam, looking a bit like Gandalf in Bag End in the small house, was leaning over to pour coffee into a mug. Percy peeked into the living room and saw Dean sprawled on the couch, tangled in their fleece throw, snoring and dead to the world.

The hardwood creaked under their feet as they approached, and Sam looked up with an embarrassed grimace. “Sorry, did I wake you up?” he said. Percy shrugged.

“I’m trying to get up earlier, anyway.”

He gave them a doubtful look, but he still smiled. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Please,” said Percy, hopping up on the counter. It was the only way they could get even a bit closer to Sam’s height. Looking up at him strained their neck something awful. “What are you doing up, anyway?”

Sam paused in the middle of pouring the coffee, and put down the pot. “I, uh,” he started, looking down at his mug. “…I have trouble sleeping,” he said eventually.

Nightmares, then. Not surprising. Not surprising, either, that he didn’t want to talk to them about it. Percy nodded. “I do, too. I have trouble shutting off my brain.”

“Yeah. Stuff like that,” he said, seeming to relax at not being prodded further.

Quietly, looking out the window as the world started to get brighter, Percy and Sam drank their coffees. That was the one thing they liked about this place: it did give some lovely views.

“You know,” they said, “I don’t think he meant it, but your brother offered to have me come with you last night.”

Sam choked on his coffee. “Seriously?” he said after he cleared his throat. “Or as a part of a bad pickup line?”

Percy gave a quiet laugh. “I think seriously,” they said. “And…I don’t want to interfere with your family thing, looking for your dad and all, I get that's personal. But I can help. I don’t take up much space, I don’t eat much. I...I really want to do this." 

He nodded absently, considering that.

“…I want to find Dad. But he doesn’t want to be found.” Sam rubbed at his jaw. “It feels useless, doing all these hunts while he’s out there somewhere doing who knows what, but…if we’re stuck just hunting it wouldn’t hurt to have another pair of hands. And he sent us to you. He must've had a reason for that, right?"

He looked over at them, grimacing a bit. “But, if you just want to come because something’s got your hopes up, you should know Dean’s not exactly—”

Percy felt their face go bright red. “I—n-no, nothing like that! He’s not my type,” they stammered. “And I’m not looking for anything like that. Just monster killing. And maybe friends.”

Sam smiled slightly, taking another sip. “…Maybe friends sounds all right to me.”

Percy smiled, pleased, as they glanced at the car. It seemed to glow as it caught the light of the just-rising sun.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there's the setup out of the way! obviously very percy-centric just to introduce and get a feel for them, but i'm looking to spread it out more evenly between the three of them. thanks for reading, let me know what you think!


	3. The Good People

                                         

It was afternoon in mid-December and it wasn’t snowing, yet, but it was threatening to.

Centre County, Pennsylvania, was all valley highways bordered on either side by forested ridges. Farm and timber country. Amish country, too. Dean had had to wait for a lull in traffic to pull around a horse and buggy a handful of times, but overall the roads were quiet as people started to hunker down ahead of the storm. AC/DC played over the stereo and in the passenger’s seat Sam was scanning newspapers, already looking for a new job even though they’d just finished one.

Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat and subtly glanced in the rearview mirror.

Their newest addition was rifling through his cassette collection in the backseat: _Percy_. They put on a brave face but they still looked like hell, even almost a week later. Maybe worse, since the bruises bloomed yellow and purple as they started to heal right.

There had been growing pains as the three of them got used to spending hours a day crammed into a car together. Not ideal circumstances to get to know people under, and Percy’d just left home, too. He tried to cut them some slack.

But Jesus, could they make that hard.

“How,” said Percy, pushing their slipping glasses up their nose, “do you even find anything in here? Only half of these are labelled and the rest are barely legible.”

“I just sorta know what the ones I want look like by now,” he said, laughing when he saw them make a face in the mirror. “What, you got a problem with my music?” Beside him, Sam snorted.

“I…don’t mind it,” Percy said diplomatically. “I really like some of it. But it’s not my speed all the time.”

“You’re into…what, new wave, right?”

“New wave, art pop. I like Talking Heads and Kate Bush, stuff like that.”

“Yeah…no thanks.”

“Hmph.” Percy continued to look through the box. “Sam, how about you? What do you listen to?”

“Mostly alternative, some pop-punk,” said Sam, folding up the paper he’d been reading. “The Strokes, The Killers.”

They smiled. “I like them, too. Does he ever let you play any of it?” they asked.

“ _Nope_.”

“Listen, I’m an old dog! I’m set in my ways!” Dean said.

“You’re twenty-six!” said Percy, exasperated. “You’re two years—” He cranked the volume while they spoke.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you! It’s TOO LOUD!”

“—OLDER THAN ME!” they yelled, but by the time they’d finished Dean had put the volume back down to normal again.

“Okay, dude, you don’t have to shout.” He grinned at them in the rearview and they glared back, redfaced and speechless.

“I—you—!”

Sam laughed and shook his head. “You’re such a dick,” he said. Dean shrugged as if to say, _yeah, but I’m good at it._

Flustered and muttering to themselves, Percy stashed the box of tapes back under the seat roughly.

“Next town we stop in I’m buying some cassettes.”

“You’re welcome to. Welcome to listen to ‘em on your own time, too.”

“This is my own time. And you play the music so loud I can’t even hear what I’m listening to—”

“Can we pull over in a minute? I need to stretch my legs,” Sam cut in in a tired voice.

Dean sighed. “Yeah, yeah.”

He pulled off the highway up into a hiking trail parking lot, since none of the roads around had a shoulder. There were trees a little further up the ridge, but here there were just a copse or two of trees among the fields of grass and cut wheat.

“C’mon, might as well all walk around,” he said, pushing the seat forward so Percy could clamber out. They and Sam started to walk around, chatting quietly. Crossing his arms, Dean leaned back against the car and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d have Sam take over. He didn’t love his brother driving his car, and he knew Sam hated having him nag him about every thing he did, but he was beat. And it was cold.

“Oh,” said Percy in a hushed voice.

Dean cracked an eye open. “What now?” He could see his breath when he spoke.

Percy, glancing down, started to creep along a dirt path leading from the lot. Sam and Dean watched, then, realizing they weren’t coming back, trailed behind at a distance. Dean saw there were marks in the dirt: crisscrossing bootprints, deer hoof marks, rabbit prints. Even the hairline tracks of bird feet. Dean didn’t see what they found so interesting about it.

“Are you gonna tell us what’s going on?” Dean asked.

“Once I know I’m right,” they said.

Sam mock-punched his arm as they walked. “That sounds like someone I know,” he said in a low voice. Dean swatted him away, grumbling.

Eyes on the ground, Percy wandered into the field of withered wheat, almost in a trance. Then, they raised their eyes a bit and stopped dead. Dean peered around them curiously to see what lay ahead.

Trapped in a snare by its neck was a squirming, totally black rabbit. _…Huh. Poor little guy_ , he thought. He’d always had something of a soft spot for rabbits. Sam approached, taking his switchblade out to free it, but Percy put a hand out to stop him. They gestured for him to hand over the knife, and he did so, if hesitantly.

“Oh…sure?”

“Hey—!” started Dean.

“Just trust me,” they said, glancing back at him with an inexplicably excited smile. If anything it made him more worried. “I’m not going to hurt it.” Then Percy approached the snare, crouched in front of it, and flicked open the switchblade. The rabbit started to squirm.

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Sam put a hand on his shoulder.

Percy held the rope to still the rabbit, and made it meet their gaze. “This human humbly requests a boon of the creature here imprisoned in exchange for its freedom,” they said in a formal, deferent voice. Like someone petitioning nobility.

Dean wondered if he was starting to lose it, or if he’d underestimated just how batty living in that cabin had made them.

“Percy, what the _hell_.”

They ignored him again, their gaze not wavering. Making an annoyed noise, Dean threw his hands in the air and started to walk away back toward the parking lot. It was freezing, his nose was starting to run, a few snowflakes were starting to fall. He figured they could both join him in the car when they were done doing…whatever this was.

“However did you know?” said a new voice from behind him, soft and rich as velvet with an Irish lilt. Dean stopped mid-step. Someone else must have come along, someone else _had_ to have come along—

He turned, looking around for whoever else must have spoken.

But there was no one. It was just Sam, Percy, the rabbit, and an empty field. All three of them stared, but Percy’s face was lit up with wild triumph.

The rabbit watched them, cocking its head. “Well? How was I found out?”

“I—…your footsteps changed,” said Percy. “Bootprints to hoofprints to rabbit feet, each one stopping suddenly, the next picking up right where they left off. Sloppy.”

It laughed. “You are clever. I was trying to escape. The rabbit ended up serving me best, but not well enough. I can’t transform with this snare.” It pawed at it absently “Tell me your name, then, human, and what you would have of me in exchange for my freedom.”

Percy smiled broadly.

“It’s _your_ name I want. Your true name,” they said. The black rabbit snorted through its twitching nose.

“Very clever. I am called Puck, but…” here it gestured for Percy to come closer, said something too quiet for him to hear. They nodded, looking satisfied, and cut it free. Then Percy bundled the rabbit up in their arms like a child.

“It’s a púca,” Percy explained breathlessly, beaming as they looked between Sam and Dean. They smoothed back the rabbit’s ears, and it settled against them. “An Irish prankster faerie. It can take any form, but its fur or hair is always black. They’re mostly harmless.”

“But—…why’d you want its name?” asked Dean desperately, no less confused, and not a fan of the phrase “mostly harmless” in general.

“Faeries, the Good People, the Fair Folk, the _sidhe_ …nowing their true name can give a human, or another faerie, power over them.”

“Oh, uh. Like Rumplestiltskin?”

“Exactly,” said Percy.

“I must request a favor of you, mistress,” interrupted the púca, looking up at Percy. “Or is it master?”

“Neither,” they said. “Just Percy. And this is Dean and Sam.”

“‘Just Percy’,” it said with apparent disapproval at the lack of decorum, “I was not trapped by chance. I am pursued.”

“What is it you need?” they asked, before Dean could jump in to tell it to fuck off outright. A _favor_? It should count itself lucky if they decided not to kill it!

“A lift, I believe it is called,” he said. “To a valley not far from here. You should not have any trouble.”

Dean scoffed, but Percy ignored him. “And in return…?”

“Gold,” the púca said. _…Gold_? Percy and Sam seemed to perk up at that, too.

“Gold…what? Gold rings? Gold coins?”

“Gold coins, if it please you. Percy. And an ally in me.” They nodded.

Its shape changing and flowing like poured liquid, the black rabbit suddenly became a black cat which climbed up onto Percy’s shoulders. They gave a delighted laugh as it butted its head against her cheek. “Dean, look! Isn’t that amazing?”

Dean watched this in stunned silence. The casual way Percy held, pet, played with it, offered to _help_ it. A monster. It’d be one thing if they were doing it for the money, that he could get, but they weren’t. It made his stomach writhe and turn, in anger and worry and…something else.

“Sam, can I talk to you?” he said, feeling on the edge of some kind of mental breakdown, if this all wasn’t an elaborate and distressing hallucination already.

“Sure,” said Sam, glancing back at Percy and the púca with more curiosity than worry as Dean led him out of earshot.

“We have to kill that thing,” he said urgently.

“What? Why!”

Dean gave him a look. “‘Why’?! It’s a monster, Sam! If it’s supernatural, we kill it!”

“We don’t spend our time going around killing things that don’t _hurt_ people! This thing wasn’t hurting anybody, and—look at it with Percy! They’re playing! That’s nothing like what we usually deal with!” Sam gestured vaguely in the direction they’d come from.

“I don’t care if it hasn’t hurt us yet! Who knows who it has hurt! Or what it could do to us!”

Sam sighed, frustrated. “I won’t let you. _Percy_ won’t let you.”

“We’re not arguing about this.”

 

When he stomped back toward the road, Sam in tow, the creature had turned into a fox, and Percy was scratching his stomach like a dog, laughing. They hardly noticed the boys approaching. No matter what form Puck took his fur was soft as rabbit’s fur, and black as pitch. And when they buried their face in it it smelled like cloves and smoke.

Percy had never been so delighted by anything in the world.

Hunters swore the Good People were a myth, but really they just didn’t know how to look. But Percy did. They knew all the tricks that hunters forgot to pass down: don’t eat any food offered, be polite, be cunning, iron repels or kills them, humans lost to the hollow hills were often lost forever. And they’d hoped for ages that the stories were true.

There was such magic in them. Beauty to help balance out the terror.

Dean glared down at them.

“Perce,” he said gruffly, and they felt a little thrill in the pit of their stomach at the nickname, “you know this stuff. Would iron kill that thing?” Both they and Puck froze. Percy looked up at him with openmouthed horror and pulled the fox closer.

“I’m not telling you!” they said.

“Why not!”

“Because I don’t like where you’re going with this!”

The black fox curled itself up in their arms and bumped its wet nose against their cheek as if to comfort them.

“I have never seriously injured a human being” said Puck in a wounded voice. Percy noted the care he’d chosen his words with. Seriously injured. púcas were notorious rascals, and in some stories even outright malevolent, but they tended to stick to relatively harmless tricks.

“What, you’re just gonna take it at its word?”

“I _cannot_ lie. The Good People can bend the truth as we will, but we cannot break it,” he drawled, bristly tail swishing like a pendulum as he curled up in Percy’s arms. That was something they’d heard, too. Though they always wondered about the truth of it.

“We’re not hurting him. He needs our help, and I’m going to help him,” they said with a note of finality. This was a quest. Ferrying a púca to safety, earning the favor of a member of the faerie court? Earning gold? Percy would have stolen a car. They would have walked if they’d had to.

Dean scowled, looking between them and Sam. “…Is this really what you want? Seriously?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Look, it’s barely out of our way. We can check in at the motel, then go. If the weather’s too bad we can wait.”

“Come on,” said Percy, smiling. “It’ll be like an adventure.” Suddenly his face seemed to soften. He cleared his throat and looked away, scratching absently at the stubble on his jaw.

“…Fine. But if that thing shits in my car I’m making it into stew.”

 

* * *

 

 Dean was speeding a bit more than he should have, trying to beat the snowstorm. And trying to focus on anything but the excited conversation happening in the back seat of the car.

Percy asked questions with a childlike sort of wonder. Puck’s responses came with careful consideration, in between loud purrs as it settled in their lap, a cat again.

 _How old are you? What’s it like where you’re from, is the court a hollow hill or a sacred grove? Are you from the United States or did you migrate from Ireland during the Famine?_ Rolling his eyes, he turned up the radio.

Thankfully they weren’t far from the motel they’d picked to stay at, so he didn’t have to put up with it for too long. But every time he heard the púca speak it was like nails on a chalkboard. John Winchester would’ve killed that thing and he wouldn’t given a damn about what the rest of them thought. He would’ve gotten it done and they would’ve just had to get over it.

But he wasn’t his old man. There were a hundred different ways he wasn’t his old man, however much he wanted to be.

After what felt like a million years but was probably only about fifteen minutes, Dean pulled into a motel parking lot.

Sam unbuckled his seatbelt. “I’ll go get us a room, all right? Two queens?”

“Two queens,” agreed Dean.

“Oh," said Percy, setting Puck on the seat beside them, “I’ll come with you. I wanted to get a bottle of water. Puck, do you want to come?”

“I will stay here,” it said, stretching out on the seats. Dean watched it like a hawk in the mirror, making sure it didn’t knead the leather seats.

“Okay! We’ll be right back.”

“Get me a water, too,” said Dean, and Percy gave him a thumbs up as they walked with Sam to the office.

He waited until they went inside, then turned to look at Puck. “Listen. You might have Percy and Sam fooled, but I know what you are and I know what we should be doing to you. And I’m watching you. If anything happens to them I’ll—”

“Yes, yes, you’ll turn me into stew,” drawled Puck. “You’ve said so.”

“What, you don’t think I would?”

“I will not harm them. Your brother or your friend.” Friend. Was that what they were? “I cannot make the same promise for those that hunt me.”

“Right. Those invisible attackers who definitely exist.”

Puck exhaled through his nose in annoyance. Watching Dean intently, he extended a single sharp claw from its sheath, holding it dangerously close to the black leather upholstery.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Dean hissed.

The corners of its mouth curled in an infuriatingly smug smile, showing off its sharp little teeth. “The Good People are sensitive and prone to offense, Dean Winchester. Treat me with respect and perhaps I will not make you pay for your ill manners.” At last, its claw retracted.

“You—!”

But Percy and Sam came back then.

“All right, can we get out of here so I never have to see this thing again?” said Dean testily.

Percy scoffed. “You don’t have to be so rude.”

“Sure I do.”

He belted up as Sam got in, and got ready to pull out of the lot. Suddenly Percy made a noise of surprise and Dean looked over his shoulder, a feeling of heavy dread in his stomach.

Suddenly it was a carbon copy of Dean sitting in the back, his arm draped around the seat. It was a near perfect likeness, but for the black hair and the bright green flash in his eyes.

 _Fuck_.

Percy looked between them, delighted. “I didn’t know you could take human form! That’s amazing!”

“Easy as pie,” the púca said in a perfect imitation of his own voice. It made him so sick he could practically taste the bile.

“Hey, cut that out! That’s not funny!” Dean yelled, turning around. Not a fucking thing had gone right today. And he was getting outclassed and humiliated by some smug little monster Sam and Percy loved—

“ _That’s not funny_ ,” the darker haired Dean said, with a grin that was eerily wide.

“I swear to _fucking_ God—”

“Oh, come on, Dean. He’s only teasing,” Percy said.

Dean shot them a look of pure betrayal, then abruptly opened the door and got out.

“I’m done.”

 

* * *

 

  _Oh, shit_ , thought Sam.

“Dean—”

“I said I’m done,” said Dean, slamming the door to the Impala. “You guys can go do whatever bullshit you want, but I’m staying here. I am not sticking my neck out for that thing.”

Sam climbed out of the car. “Dean, come on, you’re joking—”

“Do I look like I’m joking?!” He pointed angrily at where the púca, still playing at being him, sat. “That thing’s evil, Sam! It’s leading you into a trap!”

Now Percy got out, too, and started to approach. "Puck hasn't done anything wrong!"

  
“Oh, so it’s _Puck_ now, is it? You’re on a first name basis?” Dean snapped. “Who knows what that thing’s done!”

“What is the matter with you?” Percy hissed between their teeth.

“What’re you even here for, huh? If you want to pal around with these things why don’t you just go home! I thought you wanted to kill these things, to save people!”

“They’re not _mutually exclusive_!” Percy tried to outdo Dean’s shouting but that only cracked their voice. This was the actual, literal exact reason he’d wanted them to stay in the car.

Today was one big headache for Sam.

“To me they are!”

They opened their mouth to shout some reply, but he stepped in, putting a hand on their shoulder. “Go wait in the car.”

They looked up at him indignantly. “But—!”

“Now. C’mon.”

They tutted at that, but walked back to the car, slamming the door shut as they climbed in. If you’d asked him he couldn’t have told you which one he thought was more of a brat.

“Hey, Dean—” Sam approached him placatingly, but his brother shoved him away.

“Go get yourselves killed, see if I care.”

“…We’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?” he said.

“Whatever,” said Dean, raking his hand through his hair and heading back to the motel room.

Sighing, Sam climbed into the driver’s seat. He gave Percy a look as he pulled the door closed.

“…What! What’s his problem, anyway? He started it!”

“His problem is he’s spent his whole life killing things like Puck, and you’ve both been baiting him all day.” Sam was tired. Dead tired, bone tired. Months of sleepless nights catching up to him, along with a chronic shortage of patience.

“He should know better than to assume that everything supernatural is evil!” Percy said. “It’s so narrow-minded! Every group with sentience has moral variation in it.”

“He’s only ever _met_ evil ones,” said Sam in exasperation, trying to ignore the irony of defending his brother for the thing he’d just been arguing with him about. But that was it, wasn’t it: Dean was his brother. He had the right to yell at him. He understood him enough to do it right. “You came back to this because you thought there were parts of it that were great, right? We never had that choice. It was our life. We only had what our dad told us to go off of. And if we didn’t do what he told us, we put each other in danger.”

He put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space, looking over his shoulder. “Dean doesn’t know you, either. He doesn’t trust people, and he’s making a real leap of faith bringing you along. We don’t…we don’t just take people into our lives like this.”

Percy slipped into an embarrassed silence as he drove. They looked down as they petted Puck, who was either napping or pretending to in order to avoid having to comment. Sam suspected the latter.

“…I, um—…”

“I know,” Sam said. “Just make sure he does. He’ll probably realize he was an asshole, too.”

They nodded, settling into their seat and petting cat.  
  
It wasn’t a long drive a valley or so over to the state park that Puck said hid the faerie court, but it felt like it was. It was mostly silent, mostly spent watching the snowflakes blow past the windshield.

Finally, they were there. Or, at least as close as they could get by car.

Sam and Percy each took a pistol loaded with wrought-iron rounds, which hopefully they wouldn’t need, but it was better to be safe. No need to hide them, either: even if they ran into another person, no one would bat an eye about two people wandering the woods of rural Pennsylvania with guns.

They stomped through the woods, shoulders hunched and hands in pockets. Neither of them were dressed for a hike, and on top of the steady falling snowflakes the wind cut like a knife. The cat padded ahead, tail held high, paws leaving neat little marks in the snow. Sam watched him, almost entranced.

Hunting wasn’t a life for romantics. But Sam was one, despite everything. It felt like any second they’d come around a corner or over a hill and happen upon an eternally burning lamp post.

He’d loved fantasy as a kid. It was all a lot more fun before he knew it was his life, but it still stayed with him. Stories about facing insurmountable evil, about having adventures and having a home to go to when those adventures were done, even if they’d changed you. He wished Jess was here. He wished Jess was alive, that he could tell her, tell her everything. Now that he knew the world he grew up in wasn’t just horrible and bloody but sometimes full of wonder, too, he wished she could have known that.

Suddenly Puck’s ears pricked up and he stopped, tail swishing agitatedly. “I hear something.”

“What—?” Percy turned to look around, which was a lucky thing. Just as they did so as an obsidian-tipped flew by their nose, striking the tree behind them with a _thunk_. They yelped, stumbling back, and Sam managed to just pull them out of the way of the next arrow before it hit flesh.

“Elf-shot,” whispered Percy. “It’s them—”

“Run!” Sam yelled, already picking up his pace as he kept a hold on their arm. Percy found their feet and ran with him, surrounded by the twang of bows and arrows shot by unseen foes. They managed to put some distance between them and whatever pursued them, but it’d be an easy matter for them to follow Puck’s pawprints no matter where they went.

“I’ll run interference,” said Percy. “I can lead them away while you carry him.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ve got longer legs. You take Puck.” They frowned at him, looking they wanted to argue. The cat leapt into their arms, and Percy hesitated for a moment, watching him.

“…Be careful, okay?”

Sam smiled wanly. “Yeah. You too.”

Then, they split.

 

* * *

 

 The cold burned Percy’s lungs and they weren’t at all dressed for the weather or in shape enough to run in it, but they had no choice. At least Puck was warm. They zigzagged through the trees, listening to his occasional quiet commands as he clung to their shoulder.

“How much further?” they asked, ducking beneath a tangle of overhanging tree roots to catch their breath.

“Not far. Take heart,” he said, and oddly enough they did.

“Sam—”

“He’ll be safe once I am. They’ll have no need for either of you then.”

Swallowing hard, Percy nodded. “I hope you’re right.” Then, lungs and legs aching just a little less than they had been, they prepared to stand.

But somewhere behind them they heard the steps of careful feet.

Puck dug his claws into their arm as a warning to make sure they’d heard. Very slowly, Percy crept back beneath the roots and went stone still. John’s voice was in their head, playing like a record; _If you’re hunting something or something’s hunting you, breathe through your mouth. The air whistles when it goes through your nose. If it’s cold cup your hands so the mist won’t give you away. Stay still. Keep your head. Be patient. Don’t fall for any attempts to draw you out._

They could turn and fight, but the archer would have the draw on them and were probably a much better shot under pressure. And they probably had more arrows than Percy had bullets.

The quiet _crunch, crunch, crunch_ grew louder as it approached, and Percy knew it must have been whatever faerie creature chased them. They’d lived in the woods long enough to know the gait of a deer or fox. Puck was bristling, and Percy put a hand on his back to calm him. _I won’t let them take you_ , they thought. _I won’t._

Sinew stretched and wood creaked as a bowstring was pulled taut.

 _It knows_. Puck, seeming to think the same thing, patted their arm twice.

And then, somewhere behind them, there was the sound of something moving through the snow, and the crack of an arrow flying through the air. _Now!_

They ran. They ran and ran and ran, and an arrow whistled by so closely it shredded open the shoulder of their coat in an explosion of goosedown. Desperately they wove through the trees, following Puck’s murmured directions. The sounds of pursuit gradually faded away, until it was just Percy and the wind and their breaths, all muffled by the snow.

“It’s here,” said Puck suddenly, and Percy skidded to a stop. They looked around, panting, their breath ghosting in the air.

The railroad tunnel yawned ahead of them, some fiffty feet deep. It was carved right into the ridge, made of massive, uneven blocks of stone. Trees grew from the top. It was eerie, and beautiful. The wind seemed to moan as it blew through it.

But if there was some portal there, it was invisible to them.

A branch snapped behind them and Percy whirled, drawing their pistol. Sam stood some twenty feet away, and held up his hands in surprise. Blood stained his shirt from where an arrow seemed to have nicked his ear, but otherwise he looked all right.

“Just me! It’s just me.”

Percy exhaled, lowering the gun and flicking the safety back on. “I was worried you wouldn’t find us.”

“I’m a pretty decent listener,” he said with a sheepish smile.

“Lucky for both of us,” they said, smiling back. “Let’s do this, then.”

They looked back at the tunnel together.

Just before they entered, Puck patted Percy’s shoulder with a paw to stop them. Then he leapt down gracefully, barely making a noise as he landed in the snow. Approaching the tunnel, his shape began to stretch and change as he moved. Suddenly he was something Percy didn’t recognize. Lemur-like, but with donkey ears, a fox face, back feet like a rabbit’s, and a long tufted cowtail. He turned: green eyes watched them and gave a slow blink.

A cat kiss. Percy felt heartened by that, and blinked in return.

“Payment,” said Puck, gesturing, and a drawstring leather pouch appeared in the air in front of them. Percy just barely caught it. “The Good People do not care for debts.”

They peeked inside: it was filled with small coins of hammered gold that looked brand new, even though they knew they must have been ancient. It made their breath catch in their throat. They showed it to Sam, who swore quietly.

Percy looked up at the waiting Puck.

“Take care,” said Percy. “Will I see you again?” It was like starving and being given the tiniest piece of bread. They wanted to speak to him more, to learn everything that could be learned about the Good People. To follow them through the tunnel and to the faerie court, meet their people, eat their food, learn their languages and customs and stories and songs.

But they knew, all too well, that they likely would not leave again.

“I doubt you won’t,” he said enigmatically, then turned away. Percy and Sam watched Puck’s strange shape amble off and then, just as it walked back out into the falling snow, disappear.

“…Are you ready?” asked Sam after a moment, starting down the path. Heartsick and heavy with longing, Percy followed.

 

The storm hit in earnest on their way back. They drove in relative silence, both of them processing what had just happened, Percy holding the coin purse in their lap with care.

It was like waking from a dream. Or a fairytale.

Dean had seemed pissed when they’d left, so angry it made no difference to him what they did as long as they left him out of it. But when they parked in front of the motel room he hurried out, brows knitted, checking to make sure they were both in the car, that they were both okay.

Seeing that they were, he relaxed, and immediately affected a casual air.

“Job well done?” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket as they climbed out of the Impala.

Percy held up the coin pouch by way of response. He practically snatched it from their hands in his haste to look inside.

“Holy shit! What are they?”

Percy took a coin from the satchel and held it up to the sparse, gray sunlight. “I think they’re Frankish tremisses, oh, probably 6th or 7th century,” they said. Dean and Sam stared at them, but it took Percy a moment to notice they were waiting for them to elaborate. “Oh, um…each one of these is probably worth about a thousand dollars.”

“Shit,” said Dean again, looking down at the pouch in his hands.

“I was just kidding about you bankrolling us.” He met Percy’s eyes and grinned. “That’s a lot of ammo. And better food, and nicer motel rooms—no, _hotel_ rooms—”

“Hotels with free breakfast and pools,” Sam said dreamily.

“Books,” added Percy, a list of coveted first editions running through their head. The three of them trailed off into silence, caught in daydreams as they wandered into the motel room.

 

* * *

 

They’d bummed around the room for fifteen minutes or so, talking around the argument they’d had earlier. Dean was never good at addressing that stuff. And he didn’t want to sour the mood, anyway. He figured either Percy got it or they didn’t, and he doubted it’d be the last time they argued about it.

As it was getting dark and the storm had started to pick up, they decided to order pizza from the place down the street. They drew straws, Sam getting the shortest and being sent out to trek through the ankle-deep snow. Percy and Dean agreed, in return, to grab some sodas from the vending machine outside.

“This isn’t really a two man job,” said Dean as he shrugged on his jacket and headed for the door. “You can just stay here if you want.”

“You’ve only got two hands,” they said, pulling on their own puffy down coat. He shrugged, not looking at them, and headed outside. The snow was falling hard now, and he turned up his collar against it and the wind.

Percy waited back a bit while he fed a few dollars into the vending machine, and he could feel their eyes on his back.

“Hey, Dean…are we good?”

Dean finished plugging in the code. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re fine.” The vending machine made a series of _clunks_ and _thunks_ and then he retrieved his Dr. Pepper from the bottom.

“You want anything?”

“Um, sure. Ginger ale?” _Ginger ale. Of course_. Percy paused. “I—…I forgot. That you were raised like this. The only side of it you’ve seen is been ugly and frightening. And you were worried about us. I shouldn’t have been so—…so—”

“Rude? Shitty? Condescending?” He started the process again for Sam’s Diet Coke.

“Yeah. All of those,” Percy mumbled, glancing down. They took off their tortoiseshell glasses and started to clean them, buying time as they worked on saying what they wanted to say. “…I’m sorry.” He snuck a glance at them, eyebrows raised.

Dean wasn’t used to apologies, if he was honest. Sam would say sorry now and then, but usually he was either right or stubborn as hell, and he was pretty sure he’d gone his whole life without his Dad ever apologizing to him for anything. Not that he needed to, he guessed, but still. It was…an alien kind of feeling.

He nudged their arm with his elbow. “Apology accepted,” he said, and they looked up at him with a shy, surprised smile. “And I’m sorry I kept trying to kill your buddy, I guess. It’s what our dad raised us to do.” Clearing his throat, he ran a hand through his hair. “Seems like that worked out all right in the end, though.”

Percy nodded. “I know it is. But…we’re not looking after two little boys. We’re all hunters, and we’re all capable. Sometimes we can afford not to shoot first.”

That required some chewing on.

“…Just tell me next time we run into some evil thing you don’t go all ‘save the whales’ on me, all right?” Dean said, unscrewing the cap of his soda and taking a drink.

Percy snorted with laughter. “No promises,” they said. Dean shook his head with the slightest hint of a smile.

“You’re a pain in the ass.”

“You say that like you aren’t one, too, Winchester.”

Well. There was no denying that. They watched the snowfall for a minute, for some reason neither of them willing to go back in.

Something about it was nice, just standing there under the overhang, snow catching in their hair, drinking soda. But then Percy started to shiver, even if they tried to hide it, so he clapped a hand on their shoulder and led them back inside. 

  
Sam returned soon after with their pizza, which was somehow still warm after trekking through a foot or so of snow. The three of them ate sitting on the beds and put on _Antiques Roadshow_. They played it like a gameshow, seeing who could guess closest to the appraised cost. Most of it was dumb luck, of course, but areas of expertise emerged: Sam knew Ming vases, Percy knew books, and Dean always won when it came to watches or firearms. 

“Dean, can you hand me the satchel? I want to see if I can get a better idea of how much those are worth.” They held out a hand.

“Sure.” He passed it over to them and went back to watching the tv. After a moment, a yelp from behind made him jump.

“Jesus!” He looked back at Percy. “What was that for!” At a loss, Percy looked at him and offered him the bag without a word. He took it, then looked inside.

The leather pouch was full of stones.

Not even nice ones. Ordinary stones like the kind you’d find in a riverbed, worn smooth by centuries of flowing water.

“Fairy gold!” wailed Percy, burying their face in their hands. Their next words were muffled. “I’m such an idiot! Fairy gold’s an illusion, it disappears after an hour!”

Dean threw the bag across the room. “That son of a _bitch_!”

Percy scrambled over to sift through the stones, desperate to find something salvageable. They shook out the pouch and a folded piece of paper tied around something fluttered to the floor.

Frowning, they picked it up and untied it with care. A note was tied with twine around what appeared to be a real gold coin. Percy read it blankfaced, then laughed.

“What’s it say?” asked Dean.

They gave it to him, grinning and shaking their head. He read it aloud for his brother’s benefit. “‘Not quite clever enough. Better luck next time. —P.’”

Sam scoffed, somewhere between amused and annoyed.

“I’m gonna kill him,” said Dean. “Next time I see him, I’m gonna kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big juicy chapter this time!! something a little lighthearted focusing on character stuff ahead of a darker next chapter


End file.
